Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City review – unpretentiously gory horror-game reboot

The long-running franchise is back with a reasonably entertaining 90s-set story of the emergence of a zombie virus

Like the zombie-making virus which is the true game engine of this long-running franchise, the world of Resident Evil keeps evolving, respawning and regenerating extra mutant limbs and organs in different media. First there was the influential shooting-centric computer game from Japan; that begat half a dozen blood-and-VFX feature films from married star-and-director team Milla Jovovich and Paul WS Anderson. Then followed television series, novels, comics, stage productions and even a Resident Evil-themed restaurant.

Even if you haven't played, watched, read or even eaten any Resident Evil product that shouldn't significantly impair anyone's ability to at least mildly enjoy and get up to speed with this latest iteration: a reboot story set in the late 1990s in the fictional town, the titular Raccoon City, where the zombie virus first emerges as a threat to humanity. Although gravely disappointed to report there are no raccoons whatsoever on hand, I can reveal that this is a reasonably entertaining, unpretentiously gory horror exercise, although clearly a bit distended with an excess of characters that need to be incorporated into the plot, many of whom feature in older RE lore.